Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues

by H. S. Valley

  The thought of her having an opinion on this is so infuriating I go back to wanting to shove Elliott against something solid and prove her wrong. He might even let me. Except, when I move to reach for him, he steps closer at the same time, and his hands find my waist, and my hands settle lightly on his chest instead. It feels far too intimate to be touching him so softly instead of shoving him, and I don’t know what to do or where to look. His lips are right there, and there’s a light sparkle of stubble on his jaw, and the sound of his breathing is close enough to drown out the pounding of my heart. He leans in until our lips are almost touching and I barely even need to move; it’s just a tilt, another centimetre to close the space. His mouth is soft and slow, undemanding, and his hands are light on my back. Almost like he’s expecting me to pull away, or get spooked, or change my mind. Against all expectation, our first kiss is kind of gentle and wholesome and totally at odds with who we are.

  ‘Elliott,’ I whisper against his mouth.

  ‘Tim?’ he purrs back at me, his breath tickling my chin.

  ‘I’m not actually an innocent little flower petal.’

  ‘Good,’ he says, and surges in, unleashed.

  CHAPTER 12

  IT’S ON

  Our second kiss is a lot more like I’d expected. Slightly too rough to be comfortable, an almost competitive edge to it. I push my fingers up into his hair, looking for some sort of control, and it’s so soft I almost want to compliment him before I remember that’s not part of the deal. It’s not a relationship; we don’t need to like each other. No strings, no feelings, no awkwardness. A thrill shoots straight through me at the lack of expectation, at the way kissing him doesn’t come with a commitment or a promise or my mother gazing fondly at the two of us from the staff table. It’s just a kiss. A good one.

  His teeth press into my bottom lip and his hands fist in my jumper, pulling me closer. I must make some sort of sound when he does that, because he pulls away a second later, panting slightly. My mouth tries to follow him and I’m left reaching into the space between us, needy.

  ‘You OK there?’ He sounds overly pleased with himself, and my defences leap up from where they’ve puddled on the floor.

  ‘No, I really need to sit down,’ I deadpan. ‘Knees a bit weak and all that. This is all a bit, you know. New.’

  He rolls his eyes and lets go of my jumper. ‘Couch, then?’ He looks over at the dilapidated velvet. ‘Or do you need a moment?’

  ‘Shut up,’ comes out of my mouth automatically, which is good, because most of my thoughts are currently focusing on whether we’re about to lie down together and whether this is going to be an embarrassing repeat of what happened with Mareko.

  I sit on the couch, hoping he’ll sit next to me and I’ll be able to keep the state of my pants to myself for the foreseeable future. He doesn’t, though, of course. He moves in and props one knee on the cushion beside my left thigh, then the other on the right, so he’s straddling my lap, and then he tips my chin up and kisses me again. I hear his hands hit the back of the couch on either side of my head, and his weight shifts and he’s all over me. Lizzie used to sit in my lap like this as she covered me with strawberry lip gloss and a false sense of security. Elliott is a whole other thing, heavier, his thighs firmer, a slight prickle of stubble in his kiss and no chance of emotional security at all.

  It’s different – easier, somehow – than it ever has been before, and I don’t want it to stop, maybe ever, so I put my arms around him and hope that’s not too much like actual affection for whatever our new arrangement is. And apparently it’s fine, because he doesn’t stop, just keeps kissing me. I feel brave enough to let my hands wander, to feel the sharp planes of his shoulder blades and the flat warmth of his chest. And he does the same. It’s like he’s actually enjoying it, which is both wildly unexpected and also very lucky, because I definitely am, even with the truckload of doubt unloading itself in my head.

  It gets harder to focus on anything like that, though, the longer it all goes on. The more his lips soften against mine, the more he relaxes against me, the more real it starts to feel. He must notice the shift as well, the niceness that’s creeping in, because he pulls away, not quite looking at me.

  ‘You’re not bad at that,’ he says, and sits back, discreetly smoothing out his shirt where I’d been playing with it.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, trying to readjust my jumper to cover my lap. ‘You too.’

  Over on the chair, Meggan makes a happy cooing sound and we realise what we’ve been doing in front of her. Thank goodness she doesn’t have eyeballs.

  ‘See,’ he says, and backs up off me, still not meeting my eyes. ‘Even the baby thinks it’s a good idea.’

  ‘I’m a bit dubious about taking advice from an egg.’

  ‘Well then, take it from me,’ he says, and his gaze flicks over my lap before his grey eyes rise to meet mine. ‘This is a very good idea.’

  That night, the tension of expectation permeates the usual bedtime routine until I’m almost twitching out of my skin. Standing alone in the communal bathroom down the hall, brushing my teeth, I try to breathe like a normal human, willing my heart to calm down. It’s not a big deal, it’s just two people who are sort of friends, doing whatever. It doesn’t mean anything and, he said it himself, he’s not going to make me do anything I don’t want to do. Not a big deal.

  Regardless, the walk back to my room is terrifying in a fun, new way, and I almost completely bypass my door to go and get a cup of tea instead. As it is, I stand outside for almost a minute. When I finally go in, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed in his fancy soft pyjamas, patting Meggan in her cot and looking completely harmless.

  ‘She’s almost asleep,’ he whispers, and I close the door as quietly as I can.

  ‘Probably a good thing,’ I say, because even though Meggan isn’t an actual human child, it still feels weird doing anything in front of her. ‘If we’re … you know.’

  Elliott raises an eyebrow. ‘If we’re what, Tim?’

  I can’t tell if I’ve misjudged how this works or if he’s just being an arsehole. ‘Or not, whatever,’ I say, and feel my cheeks heat. ‘Sorry I said anything.’ I don’t know if I’m embarrassed or annoyed, or annoyed at being embarrassed.

  I should just climb into bed and pretend it’s not a big deal, except seeing him sitting there is sending my brain into overdrive. A bed is very different from a shitty old couch, and right now it seems very hard to ignore the fact that we’re not wearing anything under our pyjamas. I’m defenceless except for a bit of fabric. Just because he said we won’t do anything I don’t want to do, doesn’t mean I’m going to know what’s going on. What if I misinterpret something and he thinks I’m giving him the go-ahead and I’m not?

  Hideously, it seems like I’m not sorry I said anything and I actually desperately want to keep talking about it.

  Maybe it can wait until the lights are out and I don’t have to look at him while I talk, with his stupid hair falling in his eyes and his nice face and everything. Or maybe being in bed in the dark is going to make it harder. Either way, I’ve been standing here staring at him for too long. I tap my quartz on where it sits on the bed end and then turn off the overheads. Mood lighting, a part of my brain says, but another part that sounds like Silvia snaps back that we can’t exactly sleep with the lights on, can we?

  I climb onto the bed, staying as far away from him as I can without it looking like I’m doing it, and resign myself to the wall-side again since he’s still sitting and fussing over Meggan. I get a whole minute to try to arrange myself in a way that might look attractive without looking too eager before he slips under the covers, lies back on my pillow and throws his ankle over mine.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, looking over at me in the dimness like he hasn’t a care in the world.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘You OK?’

  I don’t answer right away. Dr Peters said it was OK to think about questions before I answer them, but the evi
dence so far has suggested that normal people disagree. Elliott is, apparently, normal.

  ‘Tim?’ he says after a moment, and he sounds … hesitant. It’s encouraging.

  ‘Should we talk?’ I ask.

  He sighs. ‘Second thoughts already?’ he says, looking up at the ceiling. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘No. I just –’ Shit. ‘I don’t know what the rules are. How does this work?’

  ‘You Defensives and your rules.’

  ‘You Minders and your disregard for them.’

  ‘Again, ouch. Can we make rule one that we’re nice to each other?’

  That’s probably a good one, and covers a lot of my concerns. ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Rule two, stop worrying, this is supposed to be fun.’ He pokes me in the ribs and my skin tingles where he’s touched me.

  ‘Easy for you to say – you’ve done this before.’

  ‘You’ve had a girlfriend before, it’s not that different.’

  ‘It is. She liked me. I didn’t have to wonder if she was judging me all the time.’

  ‘Tim,’ he says, as he rolls onto his side and looks down at me, eyebrow raised, our legs tangling. ‘You’re overthinking it.’

  He’s very close, and he’s warm and smells of mint and reckless decisions, and he’s just hovering there, staring at my mouth and waiting for me to grab him by his stupid silky collar and pull him down – so I do.

  It’s different here, in the dark, under the covers, the thin fabric of our pyjamas magnifying the undeniable presence of another body. He’s more polite than I expected – his touch light, hesitant – and he rolls onto his back at some point, pulling me with him and leaving me in control as he busies his fingers in my hair. And that’s where his hands stay until we’re slow and sleepy and both gagging for a drink of water. I fall asleep with his hand heavy on my stomach and it’s about the most intimately that he’s touched me all night.

  That lack of handsiness, so noticeable in the darkness, disappears in the light of day, and with it go the doubts it had quietly planted in my brain. Saturday morning I wake to him draped over my back, snoring softly into my neck, and the day only gets better. I get a smack on the arse on the way to the shower, a rather gratuitous cuddle when I come back shirtless and half-frozen, and his avid attention when he realises I actually have core muscles and demands I flex for him. It’s bizarre and pleasantly invasive and nothing like how Lizzie used to be at all.

  We have a small amount of homework, which Silvia insists we do immediately after breakfast, and I’m so distracted that I just go along with it and it only takes an hour. Elliott sits across from me, his foot resting against my ankle, and it feels like a promise of more to come – but it also goes against everything I’d expected for this arrangement, which was for all affection to be restricted to the times we’re properly alone.

  A group visit into town is littered with similar confusion. He’s the same, mostly, as he is when we’re alone, even though Silvia and Sam are there, and I wonder how much he was flirting with me before and I didn’t notice. He teases, nudges my shoulder every time I get lost in thought, always pulling me back to him and Meggan. She’s tucked out of sight in his immaculate red JanSport (trust him to have a needlessly expensive backpack) and I don’t know if he actually thinks she needs monitoring or just wants me close to him. His hands are always somewhere, adjusting my seatbelt in the shuttle, holding me in place while he whispers in my ear, a light pressure on my back as we walk through the hidden pedestrian tunnel that leads into the bush. Did he always touch me this much?

  The path is soft from recent rain and the cool air smells of ozone and loamy soil. It’s perfectly picturesque, as usual, but slightly squishy. I’m glad I wore boots; it’d be a hundred times more embarrassing to stack it in front of Elliott and have to walk round town all muddy.

  Sam pulls me out of my head with, ‘Who are we feeding today?’ It’s a normal thing for the three of us on our walks into town, but I didn’t know if we were going to do it in front of Elliott.

  Sam pulls a handful of sunflower seeds out of his pocket and Elliott turns to me, questioning.

  ‘We take turns summoning different birds,’ I explain. ‘It’s good practice.’

  ‘Practice for what?’

  ‘Being able to summon birds.’ I shrug. ‘Pacific magic thing. Your Western European skillset is probably more aimed towards, like, pillaging.’

  He glares at me, but doesn’t argue. At least he’s self-aware.

  ‘Tim wants to be a Disney Princess,’ Silvia says, ‘and who are we to deny him?’

  ‘Disney is morally corrupt,’ Sam reminds us. ‘We should deny him. But you’re welcome to be Shrek instead.’ He grins over his shoulder.

  ‘Bring me a kōkako.’ I glare at him.

  ‘See, this is why you don’t have your own bird anymore, Tim. You have impossible standards,’ Sam says. ‘Pick something that’s not extinct or I’m going to let Elliott choose.’

  ‘You know, actually,’ Elliott interrupts, ‘it’d be better for the birds if you summoned all the rats and killed them.’

  We all stop walking and stare at him. He’s not wrong, it’s just kind of … brutal.

  ‘Not in front of the children, Elliott,’ Silvia says, putting a protective hand over where Leda’s ears might’ve been. ‘Pick a bird.’

  He frowns. ‘I don’t know … the big pigeon. Thicc boi of the forest. Begins with K.’

  ‘Kererū?’ Sam says, with only the tiniest amount of mockery in his voice. ‘OK then.’

  Sam closes his fingers around the handful of seeds and Silvia holds his free hand so he can use some of her magic as well. It still makes me a little jealous when they do that. He shuts his eyes for a moment, focusing, while walking slowly along the path. We stay quiet, stepping more softly over twigs and leaves, breathing low. Meggan coos from inside the backpack. After a minute we hear it – an unmistakable, thrashing wingbeat. I lay a hand on Elliott’s arm and we all stop and wait. Sam opens his hand, holding it out, and the intimidating whoosh of half-a-metre’s worth of bird comes thundering out of the trees and lands violently on his wrist. Sam’s arm sways a little under its weight, but the bird stays put, her claws gripping the thick woollen sleeve of his Swanndri. She eyes us all for a moment and deems us collectively unthreatening before turning her back and eating out of Sam’s hand.

  ‘It’s huge,’ Elliott whispers.

  ‘That’s what she said,’ I whisper back.

  He smirks. ‘Lucky you have lube.’

  Silvia raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t look at me. She just smiles.

  We stop at Four Square and Elliott buys Meggan ridiculous things: a unicorn-shaped teething ring she can neither hold nor bite, stewed apples I’m pretty sure he intends to eat himself, and a couple of picture books – one with dragons and one about a witch called Meg and her cat, Mog. I never even knew they sold that kind of stuff. The whole time we’re in there, he pulls me around by my wrist.

  He hasn’t got any less tactile by the time we get to the cafe for lunch, and Silvia pounces the second Elliott goes to the loo, getting in while Sam’s at the counter ordering food.

  ‘You two seem pretty cosy,’ she says, and the look on her face makes it an accusation.

  ‘We’re friends, I guess,’ I say, since that in itself is probably a big enough surprise after years of us all thinking the whole group of them were awful. It’s possibly even bigger than the truth – our arrangement – since it doesn’t have a built-in expiry date.

  ‘Since when are you friends?’

  ‘Since we managed to spend time together and no-one got throat-punched.’

  ‘That’s your minimum requirement for friendship these days? You’d think you’d be drowning in social invitations.’

  ‘I’m too tired for social invitations,’ I say, and she looks dubiously at the quietly burbling backpack on my lap. ‘Meggan’s fine. It’s just. I’m constantly with Elliott, every minute except for when we’re in our separate
classes, and it’s exhausting having to be “on” all the time.’

  ‘So you’re friends with him but you don’t like being around him?’

  ‘I – I mean, he’s fine. But he’s not you,’ I say, hoping to distract her with flattery.

  ‘I’d hope not, after what you were up to the other night.’

  Shit.

  I’d forgotten about the fake hook-up underneath the secret real ones. Silvia had let it drag out for long enough that I’d dropped my guard. She’s prone to doing that. Wily cow. I wish I had the sense to be friends with stupid people.

  Sam arrives back at the table just in time to hear me fumble a rebuttal. ‘That wasn’t – I was asleep. Elliott was just trying to get you guys to stop what you were doing.’

  ‘Sounded more like he was trying to join in,’ Sam says, and Silvia cracks up laughing. They’re terrible friends, but at least it doesn’t look like they thought Elliott and I were actually doing anything.

  Silvia steers the conversation away from their indiscretions. ‘I do think you and Elliott make a good couple, Tim. You know, as parents. Don’t you think, Sam?’ She gives me a look and I try to keep my face from giving anything away.

  ‘I guess,’ he says, throwing his arm around Silvia and Leda. ‘But we’re still going to win this, aren’t we?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘they’re definitely keeping the bar high.’

  ‘It’s just an assignment, guys,’ I say, trying to derail her scrutiny. ‘It’s not a big deal.’

  Meggan coos despite the churn of different emotions making a mess of my chest; maybe my relief at being a good egg-daddy is slightly more intense than my desire to crawl under the table and die.

  ‘Yeah, but there’s pride on the line,’ Sam starts as Elliott sits down beside me, his knees casually spreading until we’re touching under the table. Sam rattles off a list of strategic predictions of why all the other teams are going to lose. When he comes to us, he says that, yes, we are doing well, but, ‘Think about it – it’ll be a real couple that keeps their baby alive the longest, won’t it? Because they’re going to stay focused and they have a real reason to want to see it through. All you random pairings are just going to get bored and careless and you’re going to slip up.’